Project: Watermill House
Architects: Office of Architecture
Location: Hamptons, Long Island, New York, USA
Area: 6,000 sf
Photographs by: Rafael Gamo
Watermill House by Office of Architecture
The Watermill House is a wonderful contemporary dwelling with 6,000 square feet of living spaces. It is located in The Hamptons on Long Island. It was designed by Office of Architecture. The design consists of three zinc-clad volumes, each with its own purpose. One is for social engagement, another is for guests and the third one is for the family.
When our clients approached us to discuss the feasibility of designing a fully appointed 6000 square foot summer house in the oceanside town of Southampton, New York, our immediate concern was that the lot – located in a FEMA floodplain, on a property that is approximately 50% unbuildable wetlands – wouldn’t deliver the square footage or the living spaces required to create a ‘Hamptons Home’.
Rather than fight the constraints imposed by the land, we saw this as an opportunity to capture a variety of spaces that could exist under, over, and between the building and the landscape. The design of this project is literally ‘high-end’. Three zinc-clad volumes – the Public wing, the Guest wing, and the Family wing – elevate all the heated areas and critical infrastructure above the floodplain. These volumes organize the primary indoor areas such as living rooms, bedrooms, baths and mechanical rooms, while interstitial spaces between the house and ground foster a series of outdoor rooms including a carport, a courtyard, a pool pavilion, a terrarium, and roof terraces.
